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SCUM O' THE EARTH AND OTHER POEMS. 
THE MUSICAL AMATEUR. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Boston and New York 



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Scum o' the Earth 

And Other Poems 



By Robert Haven Schauffler 




Boston and New York 

Houghton MiflBin Company 

1912 



76 3r3T 



COPYRIGHT, I912, BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published April iQt2 



gCI.A314030 



TO THE MEMORY OF MY 

MOTHER 

CLARA GRAY SCHAUFFLER 

POET, MUSICIAN, AND 
FRIEND OF THE "SCUM 0' THE EARTH 



CONTENTS 

I. BROTHER HEIRS 

"Scum o' the Earth" 3 

A Pittsburg Library 8 

To a Democratic Mountain 9 

Epigram (with a handful of Plymouth arbutus) . . 13 

Washington 14 

II. ELAN DE VIE 

Friend Soul 23 

To My Mother U 

A Silenced Song 25 

The Gleam 26 

Dusk and Dawn 27 

The Death of Attainment 28 

Athenian Hymn (to the Unknown God) .... 30 

Monte Cavo (after the Italian of Carducci) ... 32 

The Source 36 

New Gods for Old 37 

(vii) 



CONTENTS 

III. THE INFINITE ART 

Marsyas 41 

Growth 47 

Music 48 

The Symphony 49 

The Violin 50 

'Cello Moods . 52 

For a Venetian Pastorale by Giorgione .... 54 

The Music Maker 56 



For their kind permission to reproduce poems in this volume thanks are 
due to the following magazines : The Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's, Harper's, 
The Century, The Metropolitan, Success, The Yale Review, The Independent, 
and The Outlook. 



I 

BROTHER HEIRS 



SCUM O' THE EARTH" 



At the gate of the West I stand, *" 

On the isle where the nations throng. 
We call them "scum o' the earth"; 

Stay, are we doing you wrong. 

Young fellow from Socrates' land? — 

You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong 

Fresh from the master Praxiteles' hand? 

So you're of Spartan birth? 

Descended, perhaps, from one of the band — 

Deathless in story and song — 

Who combed their long hair at Thermopylae's pass? . . . 

Ah, I forget the straits, alas! 

More tragic than theirs, more compassion-worth, 

That have doomed you to march in our "immigrant 

class" 
Where you're nothing but "scum o' the earth." 

(3) 



"SCUM O' THE EARTH" 

n 

You Pole with the child on your knee, 

What dower bring you to the land of the free? 

Hark! does she croon 

That sad little tune 

That Chopin once found on his Polish lea 

And mounted in gold for you and for me? 

Now a ragged young fiddler answers 

In wild Czech melody 

That Dvorak took whole from the dancers. 

And the heavy faces bloom 

In the wonderful Slavic way; 

The little, dull eyes, the brows a-gloom, 

Suddenly dawn like the day. 

While, watching these folk and their mystery, 

I forget that they're nothing worth; 

That Bohemians, Slovaks, Croatians, 

And men of all Slavic nations 

Are "polacks" — and "scum o' the earth." 

in 

Genoese boy of the level brow, 
Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyes 
(4) 



"SCUM O' THE EARTH" 

Astare at Manhattan's pinnacles now 

In the first, sweet shock of a hushed surprise; 

Within your far-rapt seer's eyes 

I catch the glow of the wild surmise 

That played on the Santa Maria's prow 

In that still gray dawn, 

Four centuries gone, 

When a world from the wave began to rise. 

Oh, it's hard to foretell what high emprise 

Is the goal that gleams 

When Italy's dreams 

Spread wing and sweep into the skies. 

Csesar dreamed him a world ruled well; 

Dante dreamed Heaven out of Hell; 

Angelo brought us there to dwell; 

And you, are you of a different birth? — 

You're only a "dago," — and "scum o' the earth"! 

IV 

Stayj^^re we doing you wrong 
Calling you "scum o' the earth," 
Man of the sorrow-bowed head. 
Of the features tender yet strong, — 

(5) 



"SCUM O' THE EARTH" 

Man of the eyes full of wisdom and mystery 

Mingled with patience and dread? 

Have not I known you in history, 

Sorrow-bowed head? 

Were you the poet-king, worth 

Treasures of Ophir unpriced? 

Were you the prophet, perchance, whose art 

Foretold how the rabble would mock 

That shepherd of spirits, erelong. 

Who should carry the lambs on his heart 

And tenderly feed his flock? 

Man — lift that sorrow-bowed head. 

Lo! 't is the face of the Christ! 

The vision dies at its birth. 

You 're merely a butt for our mirth. 

You're a "sheeny" — and therefore despised 

And rejected as "scum o' the earth." 



Countrymen, bend and invoke 
Mercy for us blasphemers, 
For that we spat on these marvelous folk, 
(6) 



"SCUM O' THE EARTH" 

Nations of darers and dreamers, 

Scions of singers and seers. 

Our peers, and more than our peers. 

"Rabble and refuse," we name them 

And "scum o' the earth," to shame them. 

Mercy for us of the few, young years. 

Of the culture so callow and crude, 

Of the hands so grasping and rude, 

The lips so ready for sneers 

At the sons of our ancient more-than-peers. 

Mercy for us who dare despise 

Men in whose loins our Homer lies; 

Mothers of men who shall bring to us 

The glory of Titian, the grandeur of Huss; 

Children in whose frail arms shall rest 

Prophets and singers and saints of the West. 

Newcomers all from the eastern seas, 
Help us incarnate dreams like these. 
Forget, and forgive, that we did you wrong. 
Help us to father a nation, strong 
In the comradeship of an equal birth, 
In the wealth of the richest bloods of earth. 



^ 



A PITTSBURG LIBRARY 

From your smoky river-height 
Radiate both warmth and light: 
Warmth of understanding hearts, 
Light of learning and the arts; 
Beckoning the "scum of earth" 
To a day of second birth. 

As the furnace-flare below 
Glorifies the murky flow 
Of Monongahela's stream, 
So you light the shadowed faces 
Of these folk of sadder races, 
Luring them to learn and dream. 



(8) 



TO A DEMOCRATIC MOUNTAIN 

{For the guest-book at Brighthurst) 

Smouldering flame 

Died in the west 

As level we came 

With this mountain crest 

To look on the play 

Of myriad stars 

In a heaven of earth. 

With silvery bars 

Where the moon's young girth 

On the ripples lay. 

Then, — ah, then 

In the glimmering day. 

The prospect wide 

Of the Jersey fen, 

Of Newark Bay 

And the faery tide 

Of mist that swum 

Round lithe-stemmed towers 

(9) 



TO A DEMOCRATIC MOUNTAIN 

That decked, like flowers, 
The gem-girt slum 
Of the city of men : — 
Piteous place — 
Haunt of proud birth 
And the great unblessed, 
Of the Tory mind 
And the starved and blind, 
Of the dizzy with race 
And the dizzy with dearth, 
And of those whose jest 
Is the "scum o' the earth." 

How good was flight 

From that ill-starred sight! 

How blessed, to share 

The catholic air 

So large and still 

Of Brighthurst's height. 

For these who gaze down 
On the piteous town 
From a summit fairer 
( 10) 



TO A DEMOCRATIC MOUNTAIN 

Than Tmolus Hill, 
Through an ether rarer 
Than theirs whom fate 
Gives the Golden Horn 
Or the Golden Gate — 
Hide no smug hate, 
Condescension, or scorn 
For the "humbly" born. 
For the lantern-bearer 
From isles of the morn, 
For Plato's son, 
Leonardo's race. 
Or Tolstoy's face; — 
For any one 
Of whatever birth 
Under the sun. 
For their hearts have a girth 
That encompasses earth. 

So, for this height 

No benefice 

More ample and bright 

May be craved than this: 

(11) 



TO A DEMOCRATIC MOUNTAIN 

With that bounty of rest, 
Of art's living halm 
And nature's glad calm, — 
With that bounty of peace 
And sudden surcease 
Of terror and dearth 
Wherewith it has blessed 
The despised, the oppressed 
And rejected of earth: — 
With measures like these 
Of fortune and mirth 
May Brighthurst be blest. 



EPIGRAM 

{With a handful of Plymouth arbutus) 

The Mayflower once filled this shore 
With seekers after truth and duty; 

And yet, each April, fills it o'er 
With seekers after hidden beauty. 

Would it had taught the Fathers why 
Truth without beauty 's half a lie. 
And would it might to us express 
The beauty of their holiness. 



(13) 



WASHINGTON 

Off with the rujffle! 
Away with the wig! 
No more shall they muffle 
The soul of our big 
Father of men. 
Stockings of silk, — 
All of that ilk — 
Strip them away 
Swift as we may! 
Joyously then 
Burn the false reams 
Of the Reverend Weems, — 
Myth of the hatchet, — 
Others to match it. 
Now see a man 
Young for his age. 
With a hearty laugh, 
Lips that could quaff, 
Lips that could rage. 
An eye for the stage, 
(14) 



WASHINGTON 

Or a fishing-rod, 

A close-run race, 

Or a charming face. 

No statue, he! 

Look, and we see 

No carefully shod 

Gray demi-god 

Carved by smug preachers 

And treacherous teachers. 

Down with the wig 

And the mask of the prig! 

Do what they can 

To smooth and conceal it. 

They 're forced to reveal it — 

He was a man! 

His was the kind 
Of young man's mind 
That never said "die" 
As the ice crunched by 
And shattered his raft 
In the frontier stream. 
He but sputtered and laughed 
(15) 



WASHINGTON 

And clove with his friend 
By the moon's pale gleam 
To the grim swim's end. 

None other bore 
On that bloody shore 
By dread Duquesne 
A heart so cool, 
A head so high, 
(Though fever-sore 
And spent with pain) 
AsBraddock's"fool." 

Pray, what kind 
But a sportsman's mind 
Could so often rebound 
At no matter what cost 
From shock and disaster 
And swiftly re-master 
More than was lost. 
To the heartening sound 
Of the fife's cheery round? 
Or was it some nice 
(16) 



WASHINGTON 

Powdered prig in a wig 
Poled the Delaware's ice 
To the jubilant foe 
To bring him that shocking 
Torn Christmas stocking 
That ruddied the snow? 

And, when as Chief 
Men labeled him "thief," 

"Ingrate," "traitor," 

"Would-be king," 

"People-hater," — 
Everything 

That could cause him grief, 
How the serpent's tooth 
Devoured his youth ! 
Mark how he aged. 
Agonized, raged, 
Swore — for relief — 
He had rather be pent 
Safe in the womb 
Of the wordless tomb 
Then be President. 
(17) 



WASHINGTON 

(When burst such a groan 
From a statue of stone?) 
Yet helmw^ard abided 
That sportsman's hand 
Until it had guided 
The vessel to land. 



Here, then, he stands. 
The true Washington, 
Sire of the lands 
Of the North and the South, 
Love he commands 
As no second one 
Under our sun. 
Mind not the mouth 
So prim and so stern; 
An old age heroic 
But made it seem stoic. 
Mark the kind eyes 
That glimmer and burn 
So wistful and wise 
So brimmed with concern, 
( 18 ) 



WASHINGTON 

The brotherly hands 
That beckon and yearn. 

Ah, no less brotherly hands 

Had welded these western lands; 

Eyes of no cooler light 

Had held these states, by the might 

Of their loving, passionate will, 

In the cording of common bands. 

Full well know we whence came 

Those spirits of thunder and jflame 

That met at Chancellorsville ! 

Aye, and we know full well 

Whence, after that four years' hell. 

Came the soul of a later day 

When sad Mississippi mothers 

And girls with slain sweethearts and brothers 

Bore lilies and roses to lay 

On the mounds both of Blue and of Gray. 

No ! 't was no statuesque sire 
That left us in Lincoln his son — 
A great-heart with malice toward none, 
( 19) 



WASHINGTON 

A great-hand with sinews of fire; — 
That left us a Roosevelt at need, 
When Mammon had blunted the breed. 
To rake our souls out of the mire. 

Off with the ruffle! 

Away with the wig! 

No more shall they muffle 

The soul of our big 

Father of men. 

Though they do what they can 

To sniooth and conceal it. 

Manfully, then. 

Let us reveal it: — 

He was a man I 



II 

jfiLAN DE VIE 



FRIEND SOUL 

From the zest of the land of the living, 

From work and reflection and play, 
From the getting of love and the giving 
I hasten away. 

For I have a friend from the highland 

Who's larked with me long on my plain; 
And now to his glamorous sky-land 
We're posting amain. 

Up yonder his mansions are legion; 

Though he's met on the street with a stare 
Here, where I'm the lord of the region, — 
So turn about 's fair. 

We leave the snug inn on the highroad. 

I wave to my valley with pride. 
Then we turn up the beckoning by-road 
And swing into stride. 

(23 ) 



TO MY MOTHER 

I SEE your face as on that calmer day 
When from my infant eyes it passed away 
Beyond these petty cares and questionings, 
Beyond this sphere of sordid human things, — 
The trampled field of time's capricious play. 

Bright with more mother-love than tongue can say, 
Stern with the sense of foes in strong array, 
Yet hopeful, with no hopefulness earth brings, 
I see your face. 

gracious guarder from the primrose way, 

O loving guide when wayward feet would stray, 

O inspiration sweet when the heart sings, 

O patient ministrant to sufferings, 
Down the long road, madonna mia^ may 
I see your face. 



(24 ) 



A SILENCED SONG 

Love stole behind me as I sang 
And laid her cool, sweet finger-tips 
Lightly upon my careless lips. 

There rang 
All round about a magic melody 
That ever echoes thrillingly in me. 

Now since love came my lips are sealed, and fain 

Would dumb remain 
If so my soul may lose no lightest strain 
Of that compelling melody. 



(25) 



THE GLEAM 

Follow thy star through life's dark-shadowed hollow ; 

Follow that gleam though never so faint or far ; 
With all the might of thy soul-sinew, follow 
Thy star! 

So shall these narrow confines fail to bound thee; 

So shall the fiend set snares for thee in vain; 
So shall the nearing choirs of heaven sound thee 
A strain. 



( 26) 



DUSK AND DAWN 

Twilight, and dun, weird tapestries 
About the bier of day are drawn. 

Night-preludes moan in every breeze, 
But in my heart — the dawn. 

Night in the dungeon of my brain; 

Hope's last pretense long gone; 
Despair is knocking, but in vain, 

For in my heart — the dawn. 



( 27) 



THE DEATH OF ATTAINMENT 

(double sonnet) 

" That sweet bloom of all that is far away." 

RUSKIN. 

Not blazing down at noontide, close and keen, 
But dust-bedimmed at birth and death of day — 
New from the dark or soon to pass away — 

The very splendor of the sun is seen. 

A desert-garden of beguiling green 

Oft vanishes as hot feet haste that way, 
And often the first kiss leaves cold and gray 

The ashes of a passion that has been. 

O sweet, fresh bloom of all at the verge of sight. 
Turning to dust as eager fingers greet 
What so they longed for. Bitter born of sweet, 

When many men come to know your worth aright? 

Attainment, clad in robes of dazzling white. 
Lures us to her far throne. We clasp her feet. 
Only to find her robe her winding-sheet; 

Her throne, her tomb, — her kingdom, utter night. 
( 28) 



THE DEATH OF ATTAINMENT 

"Would God that I had died for you," we wail, 
"Were you alive, here were true paradise." 
But lo, a shining presence from that grave 
Stands forth, and a great voice — "Attainment dies 
Still, as men crown and hail her queen, — to save 
Her chosen ones from lives without avail; 

To show this frail hour's mutability 

Outlined against the grandeur of the past, — 
The future's glorious infinitude; 
To show that from no vessel earthly-rude. 
May man be filled, nor till he quaff at last 
Wine of the grapes of God eternally." 



ATHENIAN HYMN 

(to the unknown god) 

Night-folded unreality 

(If such a phantom-god there be) 

We raise our timid song to thee. 

They say thy home is in the deep, 

Below Poseidon thou dost keep 

Thy throne, where sunbeams never sleep. 

They say thy home is in the sky; 

Thou flashest an all-seeing eye 

Down on the peak where Zeus doth lie. 

But if thou art so far from here. 
That thou to man dost not appear 
How is it that we feel thee near, 

Or seem to feel, when sinks the heart ? 
Do we then know thy healing art, — 
Or is it of our dreams a part? 
(30) 



ATHENIAN HYMN 

Sometimes we seem to feel thee nigh 
In moments when the soul mounts high. 
Seem to behold thee eye to eye. 

And then thy majesty we deem 

More radiant than Apollo's beam 

Or the Cloud-Gatherer's lightning gleam. 

Then earth returns thy mien to mar, 
Leaving thee phantom-like and far. 
Like lustre from a hidden star. 



MONTE CAVO 

{After the Italian of Carducd) 

Hail! king of beech trees on this mountain crest, 
Raising aloft thy rugged bole and thick, 
And, like a many-branching candlestick, 

Reaching thy gracious arms above the rest. 

The young trees murmur and gleam in the sun, and toss, 
Breeze-fondled. Vibrant harmony they sing. 
Stung with desire; and every fibrous thing 

Takes, in the sun and the wind, a rarer gloss. 

The undulating lines of the foothills join 
The little towns vivaciously together. 
Saluting each by each; and from the nether 

Soft sliding shadows seek their vantage-coign. 

Good-morrow, Frascati! whose buoyant, teeming air 
Is impregnate with young creativeness. 
When the good autumn comes, your peasants press 

Grand liquor from your vineyards everywhere. 

( 32 ) 



MONTE CAVO 

Good-morrow, Rocca di Papa! high, so high 
You cling upon your crag precipitous. 
Like flocks of mountain goats the impetuous 

Assault of wolves has come to terrify. 

Good-morrow, Marino! and Castel Gandolfo, good- 
day! 
Who oJBPer your lips for the hearty breeze to kiss. 
Respecting your ancient, rustic beauty — this 

That holds in crescent- wise arms the emerald bay. 

Behold Albano, Genzano, and, by the tall bridge, 
Arriccia, comrade of Nemi which ruled the towns 

neighboring 
What time the feudal Orsini, mighty laboring, 

Piled them a massive stronghold high on the ridge. 

Closed in the whorls of the hills as in whorls of a 
shell. 
There the sad waves of the two lakes curl ever- 
more. 
Mournfully washing on desolate reaches of shore 
Rich on a time with forests no iron dared fell. 

(33) 



MONTE CAVO 

Wide the campagna extends, in silence furled — 
In silence profound and in its potent peace. 
And far beyond the pallid fields one sees 

The sacred place that once contained the world. 

Lies the City, wrapped in a vaporous shroud, 
Like to a person by deep sleep oppressed. 
Never an echo carries to this crest 

Aught of the mighty clangor of its crowd. 

Here it is sweet to lie and quite forget 
All of the tumults and annoys of life. 
All of the tumult here, — the murmurous strife 

Of young leaves that upon the green twigs fret. 

By every plant that sheds a murmur dim 
Upon the air; by every nimble stem; 
By every stone and tree, — by all of them 

Is raised a solemn, an imperious hymn: 

"/ hymn the candid upraises of eternal 
Life that is in the flame and in the spring, — 
In insect, ocean, planet, everything, — 

In the rude clod and in the Judge supernal; 
( 34 ) 



MONTE CAVO 

Oj life thai knows to whizz and hum and boom. 

Eternally it murders and it mates. 

In action and in thought it radiates. 
And glows within the cradle and the tomb." 

Spread over me, O beech, thy mighty arms. 

Who viewest from thine height the plains and skies. 
This hour is mine, though countless unborn eyes 

Shall know in coming centuries thy charms. 



THE SOURCE 

Unto the blooms of the mystical garden of solace. 
Unto the boles of the boundless garden of peace, — 
Shut from the rumor of earth's loud pleasures and fol- 
lies, — 
Bourne where earth's passionate discords dwindle and 

cease, — 
Where the fountain of life, more vast than the cup of 

the ocean. 
Is brimming the souls of men with its quickening po- 
tion, — 
Thither I send my drooping, battle-scarred soul; 
Knowing that after one golden hour of ease, — 
With the lilt of creation's dawn in its every motion, — 
Back shall it wing to me, masterful, buoyant, whole. 



(36 ) 



NEW GODS FOR OLD 

Their God was a god of fire, aloof on a great white 
throne. 

Where a chosen angelical choir sang praises in monotone. 

His pity was tyrant's pity. Their tears were bond- 
men's tears. 

And bolts from his luminous city sowed earth with 
griefs and fears. 

Our God is large like the ocean, and we are the waters 

that run 
With a sure, eternal motion to be with a greater at one. 
We may scavenge the dross of the nation, we may 

shudder past bloody sod, — 
But we thrill to the new revelation that we are parts 

of God. 



(37) 



Ill 

THE INFINITE ART 



MARSYAS 

Moved by the song of breeze-swept wood and wave, 
Close to the shingle on a leafy mound 
Sat Marsyas. It was the holy hour 
When the light hands of two eternities — 
The shining future and the shadowy past — 
Sweep soft the strings of life, while from their lips 
The hymn of sunset rises. On his face, — 
Shot with the sparks of joy and dear desire, — 
A richer glow than that of westering sun; 
For now the mood was on him and he felt 
Stirring within, the world-old harmonies. 
"O thing of light moving within my breast," 
He sang, "unfathomable gift of song, 
Thy spirit is the spirit of the sea 
That thralls in his wide lap this little land — 
Mighty wave-melodist — with surge-chorales. 
With lullabies of foam, war-blasts of surf. 
Tender nocturnes of calm; nay, deeper yet. 
Yet more compelling than old ocean's throb, 
This tide of music surging in my soul. 

(41 ) 



MARSYAS 

Apollo, lord of life and light and song. 

Fast filling the wide theatre of the )ji^est 

With echoes of the hymns Olympus hears, — 

Thy spirit of supernal melody 

Hath glided down some slanting eastward beam 

And passed within my breast, — such poems of tone 

As thou art wont to make with the young stars 

Of morning for a prelude to the dawn. 

And now, when I set this captive music free 

To fare again to thee, ruler of song, 

No mere serenity of godlike bliss 

Shall then pervade it wholly, nor the drone 

Of passionless existence in the air. 

For all the reedy notes I pipe to thee 

Shall flame with that strange fire that springs to life 

When lip meets human lip. Nor shall the note 

Of woe — unknown to thee — be wanting, heard 

When hands, unsatisfied, grope in the dark. 

And so, perchance, upon a river reed. 

My breath may form for thee immortal strains 

Touched with the poignance of humanity." 

(Marsyas plays) 
(42 ) 



MARSYAS 

Drawn by these strange, new wood-notes came the god 

To see begin that struggle never to end, — 

The travail of man's spirit to escape 

From the enfolding fetters of the flesh. 

He saw a fair, divinely featured man 

Playing with delicate fingers on a pipe. 

And there on his upturned face a something played 

Kin to the radiance of the molten sky. 

He ended, and the god took up the strain 

With lyre and voice; and then the slight, sweet tune. 

Uplifted as on wings, was changed, set free, 

Transfigured, till it seemed as though the waves 

Of light were waves of sound, swift, passionate. 

Intense, tone-radiance flowing from the sun 

Without an effort and without a pause; 

The glory of the day that crowns the sea 

And fills the misty far-off isles with gold. 

The gamut of all passion, swiftly swept, 

Shone there, a perfect rainbow. 

Marsyas 
Listened with wonder stealing in his eyes 
And joy before undreamed. But suddenly, 

(43 ) 



MARSYAS 

As one who in the full, free glow of health 

Perceives a fever-venom in his veins, 

He felt the fire of that too perfect song 

Scorching his very soul. He snatched the reed, 

Snapped it and flung it in the tangled grass, 

And, tortured, cried, "Woe me, these notes of mine, 

Are to Apollo's song mere infant wails 

In the vast concord of the choiring worlds. 

Though well I know my song might be as his 

Could I unmute my soul, brushing aside 

These mufflings of inexorable flesh ! 

Alas, man's art is but a bruised reed 

Hid in the towering forests of the gods. 

Fit only to be snapped and flung aside 

And perish in the splendor of the sun!" 

With a despairing cry he started up. 

And wandered forth into the gathering gloom. 

His spirit — tense as lute-strings tightly drawn 

That make a mournful music in the wind — 

Flayed by the keen, flame-edge of his ideal. 

And joyless as the woods before the dawn. 



( 44 ) 



MARSYAS 

A sudden light, and Marsyas was aware 
Close by him of the presence he had shunned. 
Who laid aside the lyre, addressing him 
With stern benignity in every word: 
"Oh, Marsyas, most godlike among men, 
I saw thee when thy soul flamed out in song. 
Lit by a spark from heaven : and I saw 
That fire work devastation in thy breast. 
But grudge not thou the price the artist pays 
For his diviner moments. 'T is a law. 
Immutable and just, that on those waves 
That mount the highest, deepest furrows tend; 
And ever on the forest floor at noon 
The blackest shadows lurk along the roots. 
So when thou weighest thy late-quivering songs 
In the cool hands of reason, finding them 
Scant of the things that make a song divine. 
And pangs the common man may never feel 
Do violence to thine unarmored spirit. 
Be comforted, remembering that thine eyes 
Never have looked unblinded on my face. 
Free from mist- veilings in the cloudless blue. 
For if the soul should move itself aright 
(45 ) 



MARSYAS 

And speak from out the breast like god to man. 

In sheer expression of the infinite 

Man's earth-compacted flesh would melt away 

In the fell glare of that apocalypse. 

Then, Marsyas, play with lifted heart the notes 

'T is given thee to sound for the delight 

Of dumb souls groping at expression's gate; 

And so thou play'st true artist, at the last. 

In perfect measures, unalloyed and free. 

Thou too shalt touch the eternal harmonies." 

Apollo ceased and smiled upon the man — 

First of the race of human artist-kind — 

Then took his lyre and passed between the trees, 

A brightness in the dull blot of the night. 

While wakened breezes whispered among the strings. 

But Marsyas heeded not the going god. 

For from his eyes looked forth an inner light. 



GROWTH 

The climax of the perfect symphony 

Sounds not at its beginning. Lone and low 
The voices enter, ceasing often, so 

As young birds newly learning melody. 

But others plunge in that harmonious sea; 

And now, from crystal tube, and reed, and bow. 
And brazen throat, a full concurrent flow 

Of music swells in rich sonority. 

Soul, fret not if the music of thy life 

To thee sound thin and weak. An age remote 
Uttered chaotic preludes to these years. 
Play well thy part, though with harsh discords rife 
Lo ! thou shalt touch a nobler, deeper note. 
And join to swell the music of the spheres. 



(47 ) 



MUSIC 

** Music is Love in search of a word." 

Sidney Lanieb. 

Is music "love in search of words"? Not so. 
For love well knows he never may express 
In words a tithe of all his tenderness, 

Nor paint in human speech a passion's glow 

Lit by his flame. Too deep and still, too low 
Even for angels' ears, the sacredness 
Of meaning when two hearts together press 

And feel from eye to eye love's secret flow. 

But music is a house not made with hands. 
Built by love's Father, where a little space 
The soul may dwell; a royal palace fit 
To meet the majesty of its demands; 

The place where man's two lives unite; the place 
To hold communion with the infinite. 



(48 ) 



THE SYMPHONY 

Carry me home to the pine wood; 

Give me to sleep by the sea; 
Leave me alone with the lulling tone 

Of the south wind's phantasy. 

For I am weary of discord; 

Sick of the clash of this strife, — 
Sick of the bane of this prelude of pain, 

And I yearn for the symphony — life. 



(49 ) 



THE VIOLIN 

Sometimes the violin seems to me 
A type of what the soul must be 

When it has put aside the bark 
And come from out the friendly dark 

Where wayward forest breezes run — 
To lie and mellow in the sun. 

The master with unerring hand 
Prepares it for the spirit-land. 

But ever, as the seasons roll 

Their roundelay through branch and bole, 

What though its voice has come to be 
The voice of immortality? — 

The old old spirit stirs within 
The nature of the violin. 
(50) 



THE VIOLIN 

And so, as if some dear, dead friend 
A word to those behind might send. 

It speaks to common human ears 
Of morning blessings, evening tears; 

And runs, with more than mortal art. 
The gamut of the human heart. 



'CELLO MOODS 

To-day the sense of spring fills all my frame; 

And, thrilling, stirs and throbs in me as when 
The sap began to course, like liquid flame, 

In March, in my old tree-home far from men. 

And now my song grows free and clear again 
And full of vibrant, vernal murmuring 

Reechoing bird notes out of brake and fen 
That tell of youth and young love on the wing 
And all the myriad joyous mysteries of spring. 

As the fair, sensuous body of the mere 

Swerves to the influent moon, as rhyme sways 
rhyme, 
I feel the bounding pulses of the year, 

Quick with the boundless vigor of their prime 
Beat in their forest ocean. On a time 
The warm, rich life of summer surged in me. 

And still my finer spirit-senses chime 
With subtle instincts of that soulless tree 
And the mysterious power that moves the summer sea. 

( 52 ) 



'CELLO MOODS 

Now through my voice there rings a richer tone. 

The lustre of my breast reflects the fires 
Of foliage like a royal mantle thrown 

To deck my ancient home. My song aspires 

To the rare mellowness of autumn choirs. 
Enriched by summer's teaching in my wood. 

I sing the sober grandeur that attires 

The full, fair form of nature's womanhood, 

Dreaming the infinite, now first half understood. 

The bleak wind moans and from the sodden trees 
Where first my maker found me comes a wail 

Of winter's bitterness. But not with these 
Orphans of summer, smitten by the gale, 
Lies now my lot; within the mystic pale 

Of art I may forget those forest pains 

In voicing forth this time-untrammeled tale 

Of dawning love that mounts through bright cloud- 
lanes 
Straight to the upper choirs on radiant music strains. 



FOR A VENETIAN PASTORALE 
By Giorgione 

{In the Louvre) 

Play on, my brother, play; 

Nor let tone's lulling ecstasy surprise 

The singing of thy lute-chords into calm. 

How good to float away 

An hour from out the thralldom of the eyes; 

To taste the balm 

Of this benign, unsensual draught of tone; 

To wend cool spirit-ways alone. 

Unmindful of what glowing mysteries, 

What passion flowers are lurking in the grass; 

Nor thrill when her rich languorous pipings pass 

To merge in thy compelling harmonies. 

Play on, my brother, play; 
For one swift hour to-day 
Our spirits, freed from sight's insistent mesh. 
Have overcome the indomitable flesh, 
( 54 ) 



FOR A VENETIAN PASTORALE 

And sensed the end 
Whereto our beings tend. 
Hark what the noon-stars say. 
Play on, my brother, play. 



THE MUSIC MAKER 

(In memory of an evening at Richard Watson Gilder's home) 

Beneath the bow 

Your live chords, 'cello mio, throb and stir, — 

My viol-like, dreamful child of Gasparo, — 

Raising from reverie your Lombard voice, 

And bidding us rejoice. 

In all the things of soul and sense that make 

These beauty-consecrated chambers glow 

As though they were 

In your ancestral home by Garda lake. 

Now, as beneath the tense exultant fingers. 

The music flows or lingers. 

The presence of the viol passes quite; 

And, for a little space, 

Rapt out of touch and sight, 

With Bach the master I am face to face. 

And now 

In ways unlike the labored ways of earth — 
(56 ) 



THE MUSIC MAKER 

I know not how — 

That part of man which is most worth 

Comes forth at call of this old sarabande 

And lays a spirit-hand 

With mine upon the strings that understand. 

Our painter lends his palette to a tone 

That is no more mine own. 

Lo! he that *from the sterile womb of stone 

Raises up children unto God' is there 

To make this sarabande in form more fair; 

And our dear poet with the glowing eyes 

Brings to the shrine of tone his evening sacrifice; 

While, filling all the place, below, above. 

There radiates the starlight of my love. 

O comrade heart, shall life be thus when we — 
Beyond the portal of eternity — 
Shall enter into that long ecstasy.? 

Shall we float thus upon a flood of tone, 
Discumbered of these garments long outgrown. 
Alone, yet gloriously un-alone? 

(57) 



THE MUSIC MAKER 



Yes, love, we shall re-live this great to-day. 
When our sheer souls, in the immortal way. 
Have uttered what our lips might never say. 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



The Piper 

A Flay in Four Acts 



£300 Stratford Prize Play 



" TT /"E have no other American poet whose muse is capable 
VV of such a sustained and inspired flight in the atmos- 
phere of poetic drama." — New York Times, 

"Scarcely any praise can be too high for it . . . there has 
been no such beautiful child-play for many years. Perhaps there 
never was one so beautiful." — Sir Edward Russelly in Liver- 
pool Post, 

<* We do not ever remember to have seen anything upon the 
stage in this country or the continent so deserving of preservation 
as *The Piper.' " — London Academy. 

"The play should have nearly as large a popular appeal as 
had *The Blue Bird,' while in quality, in workmanship, in 
purity of theme and beauty of sentiment, it is quite the finest 
thing that an American dramatist has produced." — Brooklyn 
Eagle, 

"A play of strength and beauty ... a play aglow with liv- 
ing dramatic interest. . . . Every scene has a loveliness of its 
own." — New York Tribune. 

"As the genius of Goethe recreated the 'Faust' legend and 
made it his own for all time, so Josephine Preston Peabody has 
set the seal of ownership upon the story of the * Pied Piper of 
Hamelin.' The comparison is a daring one, but those who have 
read the tragedy of * Marlowe ' will have acquired the habit of 
regarding this writer as a dramatic genius. Her work is more 
than a prophecy, it is an installment of the new drama, the basis 
of which is a courageous and non-apologetic idealism." — San 
Francisco Chronicle, 

$J. 10 net. Postpaid $1.20 



The Singing Leaves 

A Book of Songs and Spells 

" T HAVE sipped at it intermittently, and find it de- 
X lightful. There is a spontaneity about it which is 
I very winning; and the sense of colour and April light 
seems everywhere." — Austin Dobson. 

•■ " The book is filled with a thousand delights for all 
real lovers of poetry. . . . Her metres are the winds 
that blow her to her destined bourne, — . . . the tem- 
ple of the little secrets of great magics." 

The Critic, N, T. 

" The poems . . . show a rare gift of lyrical melody, 
and all are full of a vividness of imagination and subtle 
humor which gives them a very unusual and delightful 
flavor." — St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 

"There is verily a magic quality to these songs and 
spells; child-like, fairy-like are they; whimsical, musi- 
cal, and altogether lovely ; the work of a true poet." 

The Churchman, N. T. 

"Your songs ? Oh 1 The little mothers 
Will sing them in the twilight, 
. . . Then the little rabbit folk 
That some call children, 
Such as are up and wide 
Will laugh your verses to each other. 
Pulling on their shoes for the day's business, 
Serious child business that the world 
Laughs at, and grows stale ; 
Such is the tale 
— Part of it — of thy song-life." 

Ezra Pound, in "y/ Lume Spento" 

Small iSmOy $i.00 net. Postage ^ cents. 



APR 25 1912 



